Only Afriends
by Writer'sInsanity
Summary: A series of drabbles with Dick and Artemis.
1. Homework

**Eu nu fac nimic din proprie****. (I don't own anything.)  
**

* * *

"Hey, Dick, a little help on number seven?"

"X equals 49.31."

"Still don't like this."

"Still doesn't matter."

Artemis glared down at her math homework, wishing she would suddenly gain heat vision. Not like that would be a great excuse for not turning it in ("I suddenly developed heat vision and accidentally fried my math. That's why I don't have it." Right, that would work well with the teacher). Dick, on the other hand, seemed to have already finished the damn thing in ten minutes. Frustrated, she stared blankly down at her paper, willing for it to complete itself.

"This is going to take forever," she groaned, sitting back and letting out a breath. Dick only looked up at her from his position at the floor and smirks.

"This is only math. We still got that essay in English, the chemistry project, research on WWII for history, and an assignment in Japanese left."

Artemis punched the wall out of frustration, leaving a hole.

"I know, I know, I'll help patch that up later. But now, I. Need. Help."

* * *

Despite the boatload of homework and the embarrassing moment of waking up with her head rested in the Boy Wonder's lap and the said teen with his head lolled back, it had been a pretty good day. By her standards at least.

Most of her classes included kids who were either really lazy or really independent, as about every hour she could hear a collection of groans from classmates who didn't manage to finish their assignments.

Lucky her. Having a genius (more like Boy Wonder) for a friend.

She came around his house a lot more often after that.

* * *

"How's life at Stanford?" came the question, making her want to bang her head against a wall and let out a string of curses. She had to fill out her Vietnamese paper while helping (scratch that, doing for him) Wally. Not to mention the amount in the _other _courses she took up...

"And I thought the Academy was bad," she halfheartedly joked. "Help?"

Dick just shrugged and proceeded to take out her Vietnamese textbook.


	2. Superboy's Diary

**Tôi không làm bất cứ điều gì của riêng****.**

* * *

"And we're doing this...why?" Artemis looked at the black notebook with a skeptical frown.

"It's Supey's diary, 'Mis, plus I'm bored."

_It's been two months since I escaped Cadmus. I don't understand this place. M'gann said I should start a journal. I found this thing that looked tubular. Kid Flash told me it was a "tampon". I still don't know what it is._

Artemis scowled while Robin flushed. "I don't remember this," she commented.

"You wouldn't. You were on a mission with Green Arrow. But next time, make sure you put yours away where he can't find it. Got stuck with the explanations and ended up doing my 'ninja thing'."

"..."

"Moving on."

_Everything is so delicate here. I don't get why. I only touch things before they break.  
_

"Like the Ming vase in the Manor." Artemis catches Robin mumbling and then continuing on about how you don't "break a door off of its hinges" or how you don't "toss china plates around like they're baseballs".

"I really regret bringing him over to my place. A looked like he was going to break our Rule 1 and go on a rampage."

_M'gann gave me a new name today. It's Connor Kent. I think Kent is for Kent Nelson but then that would make me Connor Nelson, wouldn't it?_

Robin smirked. Connor Kent...had a nice ring to it. He reminded himself to praise Miss M after this.

_I don't have a bellybutton, whatever that is. Wally said so._

Artemis was now banging her head on a pillow, the same murderous thoughts about "killing Baywatch" running through her head. "Why were we cursed with such a stupid speedster? _No bellybutton? _How the hell did he manage to come up with that one?"

"Dunno. Probably saw it on TV or something."

_Civilians have weird thoughts. They write stories about us and pair us up. Somehow Robin and Zatanna or Wally and Artemis are really popular. I like the ones with me and M'gann. And I "ship" Robin and Artemis. They seem... cute... together._

"And...that's it folks!" Robin exclaimed, slamming the notebook shut.

"Me and...you? What? Me and Baywatch?" Artemis' face darkened. "Whoever came up with that ridiculous idea will suffer a long, excruciating, painful death. Then somehow resurrected and brutally murdered again and again and again."

"...Wanna check out whatever he was talking about? Think it's fanfiction, heard of it somewhere."

"Sure. I want to see what other screwed-up crap they thought up about us. Crazy fans...I'd rather take up all of Gotham's rogues at once."


	3. Cafe

**Warnings: none really, just AU  
**

**Ní féidir liom aon rud féin.**

* * *

"May I take your order?" A blonde wearing the usual attire all employees did at the small cafe looked down at the ebony-haired teen expectantly. She did not, however, expect the boy to stay completely silent and seem to be staring back at her behind his sunglasses with the exact same expectant look.

"Surprise me, anything will do." O...kay... This was new. Nonetheless, a customer was a customer, and this cafe had the cliche "the customer is always right" slogan or whatever. Next to the "keep them pleased" and the hidden "make sure they always come back for more". She sighed before grabbing one of the frappuccinos, it always seemed to please the customers (not to mention they "stole" the recipe from Starbucks, shh, don't tell, they got all their recipes from Starbucks).

"Mocha frappuccino," she stated with a bored voice and spun around on her heel, about to walk away when the teen tore his gaze away from the snowy scene outside and placed a hand on the sleeve of her shirt.

"I'm bored. Entertain me." Well, this one was demanding. _Surprise me. Entertain me. _She knew that she had to "keep the customers pleased", but she wasn't getting paid anymore for this. "So..." he glanced at the name tag hanging off of her uniform. "Artemis. How old are you?"

Why was she even listening to him? "Sixteen."

"So... a junior?"

This was stupid. "Yeah. How old are you kid? Nine?" Cue the narrowing of eyes (somehow seen behind the glasses) and bottom lip slightly jutting out.

"Haha. Very funny. Fourteen, sophomore. Nice to meet you Arty. I'm Dick." This just causes her to roll her eyes. No need to mention his ridiculous name.

"Whatever." The next few weeks were going to be _so fun._

* * *

"You _again_?" Artemis groaned. "Lemme guess... _another _surprise?"

Dick put on a smirk and nodded. "And this time, no frappuccino. It's too predictable." The waitress returns with a caramel brulee latte. "Better, nice taste." He received a glare in response, but his smirk never faltered.

"You never did tell me; why do you work in this dump?"

"And you never did tell me, why do you come to this dump?" she retorts with a mocking tone.

"Refreshments are the best here; it's the environment that gets to me. Again, why do you work here?"

"For the money. And the free drinks. Take your pick, they're both good."

"Mmm. Take the money. Always can get drinks like these at Starbucks. Pay good?"

"You know you ask too many questions right?" Dick just rolled his shoulders, unfazed.

"Hear that a lot, Arty. Hear that I'm annoying, too."

"You _are._"

Dick faked a wince. "Ouch, what a bruise to my dwindling ego." Artemis barely suppressed a snort at this.

"Dwindling? Kid, you've got an ego the size of the Grand Canyon."

"...Shut up."

* * *

"You free Saturday afternoon?" Artemis spit out her soda on an unsuspecting man in the booth across from theirs. Said man shot a withering look at her and she sheepishly apologized, then turning her attention to the boy in front of her.

"You asking me out?"

"What is it with you answering my questions with questions? Just wondered if you wanted to hang out with me and the gang. Seemed sort of like a loner."

"The... gang?" A shrug.

"Just me, Wally, Kal, Megan, and Connor. Not much, but we deal. C'mon, you won't regret it." She can't hold back the grin that's spreading across her face as she nods. Seemed like only yesterday when she was this grumpy antisocial girl trying to survive. Cheeriness (annoying, but enjoyable) was catching.


	4. Aftermath

**I'm rewatching Failsafe, and all of a sudden this question pops up in my head: How did Artemis find out what happened after her death? I'm pretty sure she wasn't watching them. She was the one to die first, and barely saw anything, so did someone tell her or did she just have this feeling that made her sad or did she just not know or some other random theory? I'd just like to think that Robin told her...  
**

**If this was already referred to on the show, well... :P I'm an idiot... And I did alter Robin's session with BC for this conversation... a lot  
**

**Ich besitze nichts.**

* * *

Truth be told, Artemis was coping the best out of all of them. She was the first to "die", shoved into an abyss of darkness and then harshly pulled out in the matter of a few minutes. Shaken, she had seen the anguished looks on everyone's faces, especially M'gann, Wally, and Robin.

Which wasn't to say that her experience wasn't _bad_, for lack of a better word, but at least she didn't have to see everyone dying around her... and actually _believing_ it. Frankly, she didn't want to either, judging by everyone's reactions when they all snapped out of it.

So now she just wandered around the mountain, wallowing in her own puddle of self-pity, but more, watching. Watching the occupants of the mountain. Watching Kaldur. Connor. Wally. Dick. M'gann. Somehow, she knew the order on how they all "died", and she didn't like it. She also didn't like the fact on how close they all were. _Trust. _She was trained to not trust anyone, yet...

M'gann was the reason despite the fact that she focused her attention on Connor and Artemis. Her mind-link let them share thoughts whether they knew it or not. Connor and Kaldur seemed to have the least resistance to it, their minds open books. M'gann's and Wally's were only partially open, while hers and Robin's were completely shut off. Doors closed, locked, and the key thrown away.

Speaking of locks, M'gann had been moping around in her room, not even Connor getting her to open the door. Wally was being his usual self, except with a more faux cheery attitude. Connor had become more acquainted with static. Kaldur was clearing his head in the pool. Again.

And Robin? No one really knew where Wonder Boy was, only that he was in the Mountain. Somewhere.

Then the very soft sound of slapping on the rings they set up in the gym reached her ears when she was just about to pass by. A normal pair wouldn't have caught the noise, but having Sportsmaster as her father- well let's just say being neglectful of your surroundings could possibly lead to your death.

"Robin?" There he is, gracefully flying across the equipment like it's really a jungle gym, and some memory tugs on the back of her mind, she's seen this before, but that feeling becomes little more than a pin pricking the skin as he eventually finishes the complicated routine by diving from the trapeze set up and grabs hold of the higher of the uneven bars, spinning on the heel of his hand once, then moving on to the lower and rotating one, two, three times before landing perfectly, no stumbling or replacing feet position. Her hands have a mind of their own as they meet to applaud the impressive (amazingstunningjustwow) performance (showing off) he put up.

"'Mis. Hey." He was distracted, she knew, his mind was clouded with thought and in another place. The soft, dazed tone in his voice just confirmed it. How he managed to fly with his head in lala land, that was a whole other mystery.

The look in her eyes- he can already tell what she's thinking, because... the best explanation she can come up with is that he's Batman's protege, of course he could read people like books. Plus she's gotten closer to him, almost as close as Wally, which was definitely saying something.

"You want to know how everything went after you died, right?" he said with a well-hidden (but detected all the same) sort of scared tone in his voice, and she knew he really didn't want to relive it. Nevertheless, she slowly nodded, and Robin proceeded.

"Well, after you 'died', everything just went downhill from there. When we got on the bioship, it was just so quiet. No idle talk, no joking around, not even the arguing I'm used to hearing between you and Wally. Any noise that did sound in there, it wasn't happy or comforting. Wally was banging on the console and screaming to no one in particular, and everyone else? Dead silent with mourning looks on their faces. It _scared _me Artemis, and inside, I was hurting too, maybe more than anyone else, but I just couldn't show it because deaths just come with the job and you have to keep it together or _everything _will fall apart and dwelling in the past- it reassures you you're not going to forget, but if you do... well, you're not going to save anyone else and you'll be distracted and for the sake of everyone else, it's get _traught _or get _dead._ And no one was trying to get traught, so I had to, because I don't want anyone to get dead. It just felt weird, it seemed as though I didn't care, but I _do, _Artemis, I _do _care, more than anyone else." By now he's running his fingers through his hair and biting his lip. Artemis would tease him on how cute (in a baby-cute sort of way) it was, but now didn't seem like the time.

"Anyway, back to the subject," he continued. "We go to the Hall and we find J'onn under one of the statues. His memory is blurred, and he says he needs to do something but he can't remember what. We end up teleporting to the Mountain by zeta beam, but not before Aqualad was... 'killed'. After that... well it was my turn to take up position as leader." The last sentence came with a barely suppressed wince and Artemis instantly was confused.

"Wait, wait, hold up a sec. How is you becoming leader a bad thing? I thought that's what you wanted. Aqualad ended up filling in for you until you were ready...right? Or are my facts wrong?"

Robin let out a breath. "That's what I thought I wanted too. But after this whole thing... I'm not sure if I want to lead anymore. I sent Superboy out, to _sacrifice _himself, just sent him out there without batting an eye. M'gann was majorly freaking out, but I calmed her down... in a way... I kind of regret. And thenI was the cause for KF's 'death' as well; he stayed with me as I rigged the mothership to explode, he died because he didn't want to leave _me._" And Artemis just stares at him, partially horrified at what the Team had to go through without her, partially relieved that she didn't know how it felt, how it was like, and partially sympathetic because they went through so much trauma.

"I can't say I know how you feel, because I don't, but you can talk to me." The look on his face told her that he already had a whole confession written out in his mind.

"You know how I said I didn't want to be leader anymore? The simulation, it didn't really strike up any new ideas, it just opened my eyes to something I would probably realize later anyway. I don't want to be leader, and I also don't want to join the League, and what's more... I don't want to be Batman either. Ever since I put on this costume and took up the name of 'Robin', I always thought that one day, I would take up the Batman mantle and get a Robin of my own. But now... KF was right, I'm not Batman, nor will I become great enough to think about replacing him. He'll sacrifice everything for the mission, and after 'doing' that once... I don't think I can do it again. It's just...not me." He avoided her eyes all that time until she brought her hand under his chin and forced him to look at her.

"Look at me Robin. You don't have to be the Batman to be a great person, to be a hero. Heck, you already are in my books, and probably in everyone else's too. I'll say this now, and I'm not afraid to keep saying it: You. Are. A. Hero. You are a worthy friend and family member, and I'm certain that the feeling is mutual through the whole team. I-I'm proud of you, for getting traught and managing to keep a cool head, when it was up to you, you didn't run away, you faced the fire. And if I would choose anyone to succeed Batman, it would be you." For the first time since the exercise, a grin spread across both of their faces and they shared a comforting hug. "And my room is right next to yours, Boy Blunder, I can hear your screaming. What's up with that? Nightmares?"

Everyone notices when Artemis becomes softer. Everyone notices when the dark circles under Robin's eyes, seen even with the glasses, start to disappear. Everyone notices when the screaming at night suddenly stops and are met with a soothing female voice, a male's voice thanking her and then the sounds of him ushering her out of his room and into her own. Everyone notices when the two most shut-off members of their team start to become open. And truthfully, no one seems to mind.


End file.
